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 Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 8:01 pm
As if in response to Laron's unfinished question, the House groaned loudly. The sounds of any normal building, old and worn, were magnified in the House, echoing through the seemingly endless hallways and rooms. There were no sounds of life, though, nothing to show that there had once been a girl and her daemon on the stairway. A cool breeze drifted up to the trio from below and the scent of pine trees carried along with it. A faint light glowed head, flickering and unsteady.
Clearly, the House had its own ideas about marking trails and leading the unwary. Just as obvious, too, was the fact that they were in no way, shape, or form going to rescue Sonya if they remained on the stairway.
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Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 10:15 am
Laron didn't give Bran a chance to speak. He didn't want to know the answer, anyhow. "C'mon," he said instead, wrenching the doorknob at the bottom landing open. It swung open without protest, unlike the last time he'd tried...
But like that visit as a child, something did indeed glimmer in the uncertain lighting, eerily mimicked by his eyes. It had been what lured him down there in the first place, and it lay nestled in dust bunnies. Unbidden, the handsome teen was reminded of Passions, Lunden's daemon. The lint had about as much brains as she did, he surmised. Still, he rather liked her.
Shaking free of suppositions, Laron stooped his athletic frame to rescue whatever small treasure lay hidden in the depths. It looked like it might once have been a pendant, but the chain was missing and the stone gone.
His smile was as hard as his gaze. One of the items on the innocent scavenger hunt. "Does this house think it's funny?" he fumed. He couldn't see, but he didn't care, and blundered into the darkened room, fingers scuffing along the walls as he prayed for a lightswitch. He yelped as a stinging sensation pricked at his thumb. Had something bitten him, or was it only a splinter?
"Hey, watch where you-" Put your hands, had been what he intended to holler to Bran. But with a half-curse and an oof! Laron landed on his rear, having tripped over something. His foot had been there only a moment before, and there'd been nothing obstructing his path. He'd have put money on it.
Curse wheezed a little in amusement. Laron flicked her off his shoulder with his index finger. She landed on the floor with a soft swoosh.
NOT very nice, she huffed. SAVED you, you know.
A frustrated snarl, almost animalistic, erupted from lips pressed thin into an angry line. He leapt to his feet, kicking at anything and everything his foot reached. The room was filled with muffled echoes of crates scraping across wood and with the sneezy scent of...laundry detergent? It made no sense, but that's what it reminded him of.
[Wasn't sure if it was okay to assume he found one of the items on the list, or not? If not, I can edit it out, or make it not jewelry or something. >.>; Just lemme know.]
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Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 2:51 pm
Bran followed Laron down complaciantly and quietly, he was content to let the other teen lead the way. If danger appeared he wouldn't hesitate to assist, oh no, he just preferred to sit back and allow others to go first sometimes, a trait that had rubbed off on him from Abyss.
Abyss... a small smirk twisted his lips at the corner. He found it a bit ironic that an abyss was what they were decending into, in a way. Black, deep, dark, unknown. He knew his Abyss very well, though, like the back of his hand with every turn of his heart.
They reached bottom and Laron found some bauble, it interested him and he was about to reach out for it to take a look when Laron suddenly falling, and then raging, lashing out and kicking everything. Bran side-stepped a kick and reached out once more to grab onto his friend's shoulder.
"Laron." He kept calm, eyes half lided as they began to adjust to the dark. He could make out shapes but that was it - in the darkness everything was black and white, your mind coloured in everything else on his own. It made for such a strange illusion to see brightly coloured Laron surrounded by nothing but darkness. "Throwing a fit and kicking things will not find Sonya, neither will arguing. If you get angry you can't think straight, keep whatever you found and let's keep going."
He took a few steps forward and turned his head, trying to catch any difference in grayscale tone. "And yeah, if you just calm down and don't let the dark scare you.. I can see, not a lot.. but..." He paused as something flickered and moved from the corner of his gaze, turning to look - it was only Abyss though. She stood on the floor, the only way he could make her out was by the thin piece of white twine around her neck. She was scenting the air carefully.
[Smells like mold.]
"You think this is a wine cellar?" Bran didn't detect any scent of detergant, but who knew what this house could do. He gave a puckish grin in the darkness. "Maybe we can come back sometime and get some." He moved forward and his knees bumped into something, making him stop and reach down to feel what it might be. "If we can ever find this place again, that is.."
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 7:22 pm
[Okay, uber-crappy post to keep from holding you up...I'm sorry, work is following me home these days, literally. >_O]
A hot retort burned on Laron's lips...and then faded. Dammit, Bran had a point. But his tantrum made him feel better, even if didn't actually accomplish anything. Still, somehow his friend managed to steady his temper. Not totally, perhaps, but it was strange; Sarielle could have said something simple like that to him and it wouldn't have mattered at all.
He blinked yellow eyes at Bran, not really able to make him out but knowing the general direction the other boy stood from the hand on his shoulder. "Seriously? I can't make out a damn thing," Laron confessed, intrigue replacing hostility in his tone. "I'll be more than happy to let you go first," he joked as he regained his feet, one mood having shifted already into another.
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Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2006 8:03 pm
((That's quite alright. Take all the time you need. I actually didn't post myself in the hopes that Jack would show up again but... Well, let's move on.))
As if the House was framing its responses based on the hunters, a new light flickered to life in the distance. It was far from enough to see by yet, with Bran's eyes already semi-adjusted and the daemons seeming ease, it at least beckoned them onwards. A faint sound came from the same direction, a lullaby-like tune played on a slightly out-of-tune piano. What a piano was doing in a moldy, filthy basement room was beyond their comprehension.
Ginger footsteps led them from the room and a door creaked further out of their way as they slipped through it. The light in the distance flickered again, on-off-on-off-on, in its own strange Morse code. A warm breeze slipped towards them, tangling around their feet and coaxing them onwards. The nearer they came, the more clearly the strains of music were and, just beneath that, the homely crackle of a fire.
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Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 5:32 am
Bran's head canted to the side, finally sure enough in himself that he was actually hearing that eeriee melody that would it's way through the darkness. Oh it was a beckoning if nothing else was. Something ancient stirred within himself like a creature turning in it's winter sleep and then settled again, leaving what felt like an exposed portion of himself where it had been previously. "Do you hear that?"
Bran gave an almost inaudible sigh, stepping up his pace. Abyss scurried along the floorboards, her little claws making pleasant scritching sounds before she leapt and caught hold of Bran's pantleg, scurrying up his side to his shoulder. [Careful.. I don't like it down here. It feels...] she fell silent as she struggled silently with the word she was looking for, finally stanidng up on his shoulder to look forward even further. [..it feels good.] It was a guilty admitance that she tried to whisper only to Bran to keep Curse from listening in.
Bran nodded, biting the inside of his lip. He turned to look for Laron, his own eyebrows knit together slightly in concern. "You think it's Sonya? Why would she be playing the piano down here..?" He groped forward faster, eager to find the source of that elegantly delicious music, calling out all the while. "Sonya?"
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Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:13 pm
"Not quite." The voice rolled over them in a warm, buttery wave. It sounded welcoming and kind, as far from threatening as the Earth was from the sun. Its owner could not be seen but the direction could, with some difficulty, be traced through the music to an oversized leather arm chair in front of the fire. The high back hid anyone who might have been sitting within. "What is a Sonya?" the voice asked. "Animal, vegetable, or mineral? Did you lose the Sonya or was the Sonya stolen away? I can handle either, I'm certain, but you must give me something to work with."
There was a long pause and then a polite cough. "Please do wipe your feet before you come in. Mud stains so awfully. The boot scraper is to your right. Mind the umbrella stand."
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Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:35 am
Bran stood perfectly still, refusing to move closer to the voice and welcoming fire. What was this?
[Don't trust him.] Abyss nuzzled closer to Bran's neck, pressing her tiny head against his cheek as she herself peered forward, straining to see the speaker despite her obvious displeasure.
"She's our friend... the house.." he paused, still questioning what he'd seen in front of his own eyes. "..stole her away."
He would not enter the room, however he did move to stand in the doorway, giving Laron enough space if he wanted to join him as well.
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:36 pm
"Ah." The pause was heavy and then the voice sighed. "That does present rather more of a problem. The House is not in the habit of listening to my theories. Nor is it ammenable to such paltry concepts as logic. Simply informing the House that this Sonya does not belong to it will accomplish nothing. Unless you have something the House desires in exchange? Has the House given you any clues?"
The springs in the chair creaked as the unseen occupant adjusted themselves. "I am quite good with clues, I dare say."
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Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 1:51 pm
The notes had trickled through the blackness, elusive in a tinkly sort of way. The piano was old, and irrationally, there was something almost sentimental about that fact. Equally strange was the fact that a piano was being played at all...but nothing compared to the almost trance-like state his friend was in.
It seemed to Laron that this was a different Bran...and one that almost frightened him a little.
Boooooring, Curse thought at him, but he shushed her with a glittering look; and for once, he himself remained silent, following Bran at a distance, gauging exactly what effect this music would have on him. And then...
a voice with a tone he'd heard Lunden use. Smooth, slick. He didn't like it. Besides, why wouldn't the b*****d show himself?
Freak, was Curse's ironic editorial, though the teen had to agree. He listened to the prattling as long as he could before "Yeah, it wants Colonel Mustard in the conservatory," he snapped. It wasn't the best insult, but it was higher class than Laron's usual. "What the hell does a house ever want?" he demanded, squeezing past the other boy with only a flickering glance.
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Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2006 3:11 pm
CLOSED! And thank you, to Sarielle and Cassiopeia, for keeping this going, and of course, to Shorty for taking so much underhand. I'm so proud of all of you!
CONGRATS ON LARON, SARI! heart
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